Farm to Jar Club
Erika Bland, for Farm to Family
Calling all Community Food Enthusiasts! This summer, we are launching a new community-based food preservation initiative: the Farm to Jar Club!
Coordinated by wonderful island chef Sophia Katsanikakis, this project focuses on mentorship and community building through food and is being developed as an ongoing collective effort focused on seasonal food preservation, food security, practical skills-sharing, and community resilience. The vision is to bring people together throughout the growing season to preserve local food through activities such as canning, freezing, fermenting, dehydrating, pickling, sauce-making, broth-making, storage preparation, and more.
This initiative is intended to create opportunities for: skill-sharing and intergenerational learning; community preparedness and food security; seasonal workshops and collaborative preservation days; organizing around local food production and storage; and building stronger connections between growers, foragers, cooks, and community members.
A key part of this initiative will be supporting the work of Farm to Family Meals Service Society by helping preserve locally grown and harvested food for use in our meal programs. By organizing preservation work collectively, we hope to make better use of seasonal abundance, reduce food waste, strengthen local food systems, and increase access to nutritious community meals year-round.
A few of us have met and begun developing a seasonal food activities calendar that outlines a plan for possible foods, preservation activities, and priorities throughout the year. Topics and activities include: canning and pressure canning; fermentation and pickling; drying and dehydrating; freezing and storage; wild harvesting and mushroom preservation; batch cooking and meal preparation; planning the harvest; and food safety and preservation practices.
The idea is that people can organize meet-ups and participate when they are able, not necessarily commit to attending every event. For instance, some people will want to pickle things, some will want to make fruit leather, but maybe not both. That’s okay. I hope this can be a community of folks interested in preserving local foods of all kinds, and that we can support one another in doing so.
Farm to Family is currently developing an online community space through the website at www.farmtofamilybc.ca. The goal is to create a shared platform where participants will be able to sign in, communicate with one another, share recipes and preservation resources, coordinate seasonal activities, track projects and inventories, and build an accessible archive of community knowledge over time. We hope this online space will help support ongoing collaboration and make it easier for members to stay connected between preservation days and seasonal gatherings. We would love to see a collaborative recipe book and seasonal food calendar come out of this!
As part of this initiative, we also hope to create opportunities for knowledgeable community members to share food preservation skills through small workshops and demonstrations. We recognize the immense value of lived experience and local knowledge, and we would like to offer small honoraria whenever possible to individuals willing to lead a session, teach a preservation technique, or help mentor others in the community. Our hope is that this project can become a space for both learning and preserving knowledge across generations.
Our first Farm to Jar session was a huge success. We processed around 10 kilos of zucchini into zucchini relish, and made different flavours of sauerkraut. Participants took a small jar home and the rest is in the pantry to be used for Farm to Family Meal programs. Thank you to Judy Armstrong who led the session with her incredible relish recipe and to Lake Farm and everyone who kindly donated zucchinis from their garden. Our next session will be held on Wednesday, September 2nd at 2:30 in the Community Hall kitchen. We will be processing apples and blackberries into apple sauce and pie filling.
At this stage, we are reaching out to gauge interest, gather ideas, and begin building a core group of participants who would like to help shape the project. Some of us have already begun meeting and brainstorming! If this sounds like something you would like to be involved in, whether occasionally or regularly, we would love to hear from you. Anyone with curiosity around or experience in food preservation, gardening, farming, cooking, foraging, community organizing, or simply an interest in learning and participating, is welcome.
More details about scheduling and seasonal activities will come together as the group develops. For more information, or to express interest in participating, please contact the Farm to Jar Coordinator:
Sophia Katsanikakis, Farm to Family Meals Service Society | f2jcoordinator@gmail.com | 778 585 5698
This project is funded in part by the Government of Canada’s New Horizons for Seniors Program.
